“I will know in two days from now, at the most.”
“Okay, then. You will continue to irrigate and change the dressings on the wound while you monitor it.”
Hwang frowned. “It is kind that you wish to preserve her eye, but it might be better to—”
“Ben, I am not just preserving her eye. I’m trying to preserve our morale, too. Holding someone down to exenterate the entire eye without benefit of anesthesia would shake up any group, but civilians more than most. And how long do you figure it would take for her to recover from what will almost certainly have to be a midday surgery, so that Mr. Xue can adequately see what he is doing?” Which is to say, “conduct an intrinsically difficult surgery for which he is totally untrained.”
Xue lowered his eyes. “I would not want to ask Ms. Hirano to become ambulatory for at least three hours.”
Caine nodded. “And that means more lost time. As it is, we lost the end of yesterday. At least now we’ve got our kits repacked and can make some progress. If our enemies come down here to search for us, we’ve already taken a terrible risk by remaining at this site for twenty-two hours. Let’s get moving.” He started reaching for his pack.
Nasr Eid stood quickly. “Captain Riordan, how can we travel safely when there might still be a saboteur among us?”
Caine lifted his pack, settled it on one shoulder. “Mr. Eid, you make an excellent point. But every minute we delay here is a much greater danger. If any enemies are out there to strike at us, the worst thing we can do is remain at the crash site.”
“Yes, but we are traveling as an armed party.” Nasr eyed the rifles waiting to be picked up by the three persons who would be assigned to the first security patrol. “If there is still a saboteur, we are arming them, enabling them to finish their job.”
Riordan shook his head. “Most saboteurs are not suicidal, which is exactly the kind of pathology that attempting a one-versus-nine attack requires. It would also require a world-class assassin to ensure that none of us would escape during their attempt. And if there was such an assassin among us, he or she would have attacked at dusk last night, when most of us were trying to help Ms. Hirano, distribute food, set up perimeter watches, arrange basic challenges and passwords, and dig a privy pit.” Which was why I felt like I needed an additional eye in the back of my head when dusk came on, and why I slept with one open all night long.
“So,” said Mizuki, her voice hoarse and a bit brittle, “you think it unlikely there is still a saboteur amongst us?”
Riordan heard the hopeful, rising note at the end of her question: it was an unconscious plea for him to make at least one of her fears go away. But Caine couldn’t do so, not at the expense of the truth and the vigilance that the group had to maintain. “No, I’m not saying that, Ms. Hirano. But if our spaceside enemies intend to finish us off, then a saboteur’s logical objective is to guide them to us, not mount a solo attack. That’s also the only way for a saboteur to get home, because they’re certainly not leaving Disparity in that”—he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ruined shuttle—“or getting out-system without a shift-carrier.”
Caine put his other arm through the pack’s other strap. “We’re moving out. First security patrol is Mr. Macmillan, Ms. Betul, and Mr. Eid on rearguard. Second patrol will be Ms. Salunke, myself, and Ms. Veriden on rearguard. Questions?” There were none.
Wordlessly, the group began following the narrow shore toward the downriver bend.
* * *
Shortly after turning that bend, the river became increasingly constricted between tough volcanic formations which refused to submit to the wear of the water. Instead, its currents had backed up and scalloped out a turbulent pool, framed by basaltic outcroppings which split the outflow into several different watercourses. Judging from what they could see in the distant mists, these various streams all ran between low, rocky ridges, each channel becoming a rock-strewn flume. The one exception was a wide-mouthed outflow which was also the shallowest. Its relatively broad, clear shores were covered with tightly thatched mini-ferns that were the local equivalent of meadow and marsh grass. Various narrow points promised easy fording: swathes of modest white ripples stretched between the two shores. Without even stopping to confer, the group began working around the pool toward the wider, shallower stream.
Caine, who only nine months ago had been leading Indonesian guerillas in the West Java jungles, dropped back a few steps to walk alongside Ben Hwang. “I must be out of shape from shipboard living. I never used to notice the humidity. How are you holding up?”
“About the same. But I’m not so sure that it’s just the humidity we’re feeling. The filter masks significantly dehumidify the air. I’m worried about inhaled microbes.”
Caine frowned. “The filter mask should be even more effective at screening those out.”
Ben nodded. “Yes, assuming we are wearing them all the time.”
Riordan heard the veiled accusation. “I know you think that those of us who went dunking for food rations yesterday were idiots for for taking off our masks. But since you didn’t, how do you explain your own shortness of breath?”
Hwang smiled. “Last night, when I woke up for my half-watch, I saw that three people had removed their masks in their sleep. Then I realized that I had also.”
“They are pretty uncomfortable when you’re trying to rest,” Caine agreed. “I wonder if there’s a way to rig them so they are harder to get off?”
“I’ve been thinking about a modification to the straps that might help with that. I’ll try making the adjustments when we stop for lunch.”
“If we do stop for lunch,” Caine amended.
Hwang glanced at him. “I know that you’re in a hurry to put some distance between us and the wreck, but—”
“Ben, it’s possible that Mizuki is never going to be any stronger than she is right now. Not if her eye infects and requires exenteration. And if our respiratory problems are the onset of a microbe, once again, our ability to make progress is never going to be any better than it is right now. So today, we eat on the move. Because we can.” Caine picked up the pace again, heading for the rocks that stretched across the one narrow watercourse that lay between them and the wider, shallower one that was their ultimate objective.
* * *
Not knowing what other dangers might lurk in the shallow water or beyond the far margins of the shore, Caine kept the group to the center of the riverbank, which turned into an impromptu walking tour of the disparate flora and fauna that might have inspired Disparity’s name. The plants varied from cactus-analogs with feeler-laden twigs instead of needles, brain coral spongiforms that could open into four equal parts and lure in a variety of quickly flitting creatures, and a thick tangle of black-maroon ground cover that resembled brittle, self-climbing kelp. These plants and their permutations tended to occur together, either in clumps, or as extensive, shore-lining swards.
The other, wholly distinct class of flora was more reminiscent of terrestrial forms, and the further they moved downriver, the more of it Caine noticed, particularly along the water’s edge. The most dramatic exemplar was what the group came to call bumbershoots. Their tops, vaguely reminiscent of palms, were immense, pouting petals: in the daytime, the tree resembled a ridiculously tall umbrella. The tops of the petals were a dark, rich violet, whereas the undersides shone as if they had been brushed with a thin coating of silver-gold. But as the first day’s march came to an end and the light began to fade, these petal-fronds drooped until they lay flat against the bole of the tree, which was comprised of an immense cluster of millimeter-gauged tubules with an almost lacquered exterior. Around the bumbershoot was an entirely different form of ground cover: the tiny spatulate fern-grass that they had seen near the crash site. Beneath that, almost invisible, was a substrata of ground-following fungi and lichen.